Tanzer writes great notes, from the perspective of being a skilled crafter of prose. But I stopped subscribing because however well-written the notes were, they didn’t seem to have any correlation to what was actually in my glass.
That’s about right for most critics. It’s OK to write about the structure of the wine, or the overall impression, e.g. hot, short, bitter, etc., but recording a list of different flavors that one finds, or claims to find, is rather useless. Points give a rough indication of how someone felt, so if it’s in the high nineties, I figure the person really liked it, in the low nineties, they just liked it, in the high eighties, they’d drink it, not bad, and in the low eighties, they’d just as soon have something else. If I agree with their overall assessment in that general sense, I’d know where to put that critic as a reference for myself. But then I rarely ever buy for personal consumption based on someone else’s score anyway. Those are for selling, not for buying, as Ned pointed out.
I think Josh and Steve do a very good job. I wish their notes carried more weight in the market place, as they appear to be much more honest than other critics.
Disclosure: I am “friendly” with Josh (not Steve), but my opinion on Josh was created before that.
Josh, Molesworth, and Parker are all very similar on Rhone. Not the same, but similar. All three like 2004-2007. Molesworth and Raynolds prefer 2005 as the top vintage…Parker…well, we all know which one he loves, but Molesworth and Raynolds still gave very good scores to 2007, just not as absurd as Parker.
I like Josh and Steve as well. They do particularly good work on the higher-end of the wine spectrum, IMHO. I think they are a little too quick to give 89 and 90 point scores to budget wines that don’t deserve them. They’re not ‘Miller bad,’ but they’re not reliable <$20 either.
The loss of the print version was not a terrible one in my mind, as the format wasn’t very reader-friendly (the jumbled-up paragraphs instead of line entries for the wines made it hard for me to find a particular wine).
I like very much Steve’s notes on barolo/barb, white burg and red burg. Josh seems ok to me.
My main problems with IWC are: i) that Bordeaux coverage is inconsistent and a little thin. Ian D’Agata was the latest designee to cover; and ii) the web only version. Rarely do I go back to read old versions that only appear on line. To me that diminishes the value of the publication by more than half.
Schildknecht is awesome. He seems to have immense technical and historical knowledge to complement a great palate. I tend to trust his recommendations very highly, and hist style of writing is very sharp as well.
1996 Krug Brut Vintage
1990 Chateau Latour Pauillac
2005 Chateau Margaux Margaux
1998 Chateau de Beaucastel Chateauneuf du Pape Hommage a Jacques Perrin
2002 Harlan Estate Red Wine Napa Valley
1994 Avignonesi Vin Santo Vino da Tavola di Toscana
2005 Chateau Ausone Saint Emilion
2005 Domaine de la Romanee Conti Romanee Conti
2006 Domaine Jean-Francois Coche-Dury Corton Charlemagne
2005 Bouchard Pere et Fils Chambertin Clos de Beze
I’m surprised by the negativism on some of the posts on this thread. Trying hard to see a pattern.
For me, IWC has by far the most “accurate” TNs relative to my palate of any source of reviews. Whether they print the thing and mail to me is simply not relevant; I have a printer and in any case, I can read it on my laptop. What I care about is the descriptions, which I think are usually dead on, and the scoring, which is low compared to Parker but in a consistent way. Maybe a little low by my own standards, but who cares? A score is just a number and if I know their style, that works for me.
I’m surprised by the nasty tone of some posts, though. Sure, Steve writes in a kind of colorless way (Josh less so), but why is that reason for hostility? I don’t even see the hyper-clean thing; many of the wines Steve and Josh like strike me as quite nuanced.
And the odd thing is this sense that by implication, Parker’s often hyperbolic TNs and often inflated scores are somehow being offered as better. On the Rhone, which is my main category of wines, or Spain and Italy and Oregon (my other groups) WA is less and less aligned with my palate; Josh (except on 2003) seems more and more aligned with what I look for. And Steve has always been dead on.
So count me as an IWC fan, purely because their notes work for me. And while I continue to use WA too, I guess I’m less and less comfortable trusting their recommendations.
Ken, not trying to get into a debate here, but in a thread who’s sole purpose is getting info on people’s take about a particular wine publication, why wouldn’t you expect people to voice their opinions? Some people are going to find the publication useful and subscribe (I do) and some are going to think it stinks, and some folks will be totally ambivalent. Which is kind of what we’re getting in terms of feedback, at least IMO.
With all due respect you seem to have a pattern of being overly concearned with telling other people what they should and should not write on these wine message boards.
I first subscribed to IWC because of the CT tie-in and quickly subscribed to WA and WS. I have since dropped WA and WS. The scoring is more consistent, my palate aligns better with Steve and Josh than most critics, and the writing is better. Bonus features notwithstanding, the quantity of reviews could be higher but I think they do a good job of covering the top producers in a given region as well as some newcomers. Add Schildknecht back to the mix and it would be ideal.
I am so glad that I came across IWC before WA, because, having read Steve’s implicit criticism of Parker’s drinking windows on very ripe wines, I shied away from buying based on WA scores unless they were corroborated, which turned out to be wise. It didn’t take but a year to come to the conclusion that these were more thoughtful critics than RP simply from the way they wrote about their subject. Although more reviews would be nice, I appreciate that quite a few TNs have evidence of the wine being tasted over a longer period of time, not just a 1 oz swish/spit/write and move on sort of tasting. Additional points are awarded because IWC basically called the price bubble as it was happening and because Raynolds mocked Mollydooker in print.
I’m a subscriber… I think they take a fairly “scientific” approach to their tasting notes and like their format - state the color, then the aromas, then the flavors. From a scoring perspective, I appreciate the fact that they routinely have the stingiest scores of any of the major publications and avoid grade inflation. The only drawback is the depth of coverage…I’d appreciate more reviews.
Great news Berry: if you click my name, and then click “Add foe”, all my postings (which are rare over here) will be hidden. eSquires has a similar feature. So you should do that. Gosh, maybe everyone should do that!
Like a few others, I signed up for IWC when they aligned with Cellartracker. My rough sense is that IWC shares the WA and WS tendency to favor heft, intensity and riper fruit flavors. When a 95-point wine is pretty much undrinkable, I lose trust in the critic. I don’t know whether it’s the way they taste, how many or what, but there’s something about the process that skews this way.
Among the pros, Schildnecht and Gilman seem to avoid this. But these days it’s the Blobbers and CT that I rely on.
Dan, I just read your new sign off - if I didn’t read your shtuff, how would I know if I was really offended or not?
I’m also curious about James’ comment on the 95’s, especially given that one of the more common gripes I see about Tanzer is that everything seems to fall within an 88-92 point range, so the sample size of 95 pointers in his publication is much smaller than, say, WA or WS. Also, Steve really has a liking (at least based upon his commentary and coverage) for Chablis, which to me is about as “anti-heft” as you can get, at least in terms of those big-buttery Cali Chards so many wine critics seem to love.
Since I’m not a subscriber anymore, so I was reporting a general memory and impression. How does IWC score the recent Clio wines? I’d put those in the undrinkably sweet category.
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